April 4: The Enemy of the World Episodes 1 & 2

Just to reiterate: this story exists in full!  That's such an incredible, wonderful thought, being able to view another Troughton story, and it seemed almost unthinkable just a year ago, when it looked like we were only going to get odd episodes recovered -- the last recovery of a complete serial had been The Tomb of the Cybermen in 1991: 22 years earlier.  So the fact that this story is complete is still thrilling.  And so we can see that these are in fact the first episodes shot at the higher 625-line resolution -- all previous episodes having been filmed in 405-line.  And the difference is noticeable.

And fortunately for those watching this newly-recovered story, these two episodes are quite action-packed and exciting.  Episode 1 opens with a hovercraft chase on the beach and a helicopter ride, as three assailants shoot at the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria -- but not before the Doctor gets a chance to go for a swim in the water.  But they're being hunted down for some reason, although Jamie knocks one of them out after yelling "Craeg an tuire!", the rallying cry of Clan MacLaren³⁹ -- the first time, I think, we've heard this since The Highlanders.  The odd thing about this situation, as is often pointed out, is that the assailants and their rescuer, Astrid Ferrier, both work for the same organization -- so Rod, Curly, and Anton are all shooting at a fellow employee.  Hmm.

But Astrid spirits them away in a helicopter registered to the end of 2018 -- so get ready for a man named Salamander to rise to power in the next four years -- and takes them to her bungalow, where the Doctor treats her bullet wound in a wonderfully flirtatious scene. 

ASTRID: Oh, you're a doctor?
DOCTOR: Well, not of any medical significance.
ASTRID: Doctor of law? Philosophy?
DOCTOR: Which law? Whose philosophies, eh? ...
ASTRID: Doctor of science?... A doctor of divinity, then?
DOCTOR: You'll run out of doctors in a minute!

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Enemy of the World)

Then, another failed attack later, they all arrive at Astrid's employer, Giles Kent, where Giles fills them in on the world situation ("We've been out of touch of civilization for a while... On ice, shall we say," the Doctor states).   And then, in what looks like a bizarre move no matter what, it turns out that Kent has arranged for Salamander's chief of security, Donald Bruce, to arrive -- forcing the Doctor to impersonate Salamander.

Jamie "saves" Salamander from assassination. (The Enemy of
the World Episode 2) ©BBC

Episode two isn't quite as action-packed, although there are still some good moments.  But it opens with the Doctor pulling off the impersonation, followed by a wonderful moment of Bruce feeling impotent, which he takes out on Jamie: "McCrimmon, you said?... Well, you just watch your step, that's all."  And we also get the interesting development of the Doctor not being certain which side he should trust: Kent says Salamander is trying to take over the world, but Kent himself clearly isn't very trustworthy -- so Jamie and Victoria are sent to the Central European Zone to gather more information.  This means that we get to see Troughton in full force as Salamander, playing a character so different from the Doctor that when he shares a scene with Jamie, you almost forget that these two actors have ever met before.  It also means that Jamie gets a chance to carry a larger-than-usual part of the story, which he does with great aplomb, jumping onto Salamander's terrace, overpowering a guard, throwing a (fake) bomb into the lake, and then holding his hands out with a smile as if to say, "See what I just did there?"  It's a great performance.

And we discover that Salamander is in fact as devious as Kent claims, as he blackmails Fedorin (who is presumably the second-in-command of the Central European Zone, though this is never outright stated) into helping him replace the popular and not pro-Salamander controller of the Zone, Alexander Denes, using a volcanic eruption (which Salamander somehow predicted) as a pretext for replacing Denes, with the eventual intent of assassinating him at Fedorin's hand...







³⁹ Actually, the rallying cry of Clan MacLaren (which Jamie was apparently the piper for, according to The Highlanders) was "Creag an tuirc!"  One wonders if it was a simple misspelling which led to the version most Who fans are familiar with.